


Pumpkins

by mediocrityatbest



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Other, familial lamp + remus, parental analgoical, sibling creativitwins + patton, sibling roman remus patton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 16:43:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21102686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediocrityatbest/pseuds/mediocrityatbest
Summary: This is for Sanders Sides Spooky Month being hosted by @sanderssidescelebrations on Tumblr.Day Two Prompt: bakingLogan's favorite treat comes around exactly once a year, and it comes with all of its own rituals and traditions. Those rituals and traditions have changed over the years; that just makes it that much more special.





	Pumpkins

**Author's Note:**

> This was fucking hell to tag and format. I do not know why technology has turned against me this day, but I am Done.

Logan’s favorite snack came around exactly once a year. It was a delicacy that he hadn’t been introduced to until he was twenty and dating his then-boyfriend, now-husband. It was delicious and amazingly simple to make and for some reason, Logan just couldn’t do it.

The first step to the best treat ever was: getting out of the house. In the last few years, this tradition had been slightly altered for them. Now, instead of Virgil and Logan jumping in the car and heading down the road, it took a little more effort.

“Roman!” Virgil called. “Come on! We have to go pick out pumpkins!”

“But Daaaaaa-aaaaad,” Roman said, “I don’t waaaannaaaaaa.” Roman splayed himself out on the couch and flung his jacket across the room. He kicked his feet against the couch and threw his arms up. Logan focused on holding Patton and keeping Remus in his clothes and also not eating worms, trusting entirely that his husband had Roman handled. The twins could be a lot all at once, but if they could be kept apart for five minutes they tended to be significantly easier to get moving.

“Ro, c’mon. You love picking pumpkins. And we get to carve them once we come home.” Logan grabbed Remus and slung him over a shoulder. Remus began squealing and laughing wildly, trying to get away. Then Logan swung Patton up too. Patton squealed excitedly and grabbed onto Logan’s face. “Oh no!” Virgil exclaimed. “Prince Roman, your brothers are being kidnapped by the evil giant! You have to save them!” This, at long last, seemed to pique Roman’s interest. He jumped up from the couch, objections long forgotten, and cried, “Worry not, fair Princes! I’ll save you!” He chased them out of the house, little wooden sword at the ready. Logan went toward the car and dropped to his knees when he felt the sword smack into his thighs.

“Oh, no! Woe is me!” Logan put a hand to his forehead like a swooning maiden and let Remus scramble down. Patton toddled clumsily after him. Remus pulled him behind Roman, while Roman pointed his sword at Logan’s heart, a giant grin on his face.

“You’ve been bested, fiend! Admit defeat, and maybe I’ll spare you.”

“So sorry, little Prince,” Logan said. “I never should have challenged anyone as fearsome and amazing as you to battle. You are too good to beat.”

Roman appraised Logan with a serious look. He turned to Remus. “What say you, Prince Remus? Should we spare him?”

Remus shrugged. “Nah.” As one, they pounced on Logan and he collapsed backward. Patton shrieked from the ground a few feet away, clapping. They wrestled in the grass for a moment before Roman shoved his sword under Logan’s arm. Logan caught it there and wailed dramatically, “I’ve been defeated! I’ve been killed dead by the noble Princes! Their prowess knows no bounds!” Logan fell still, and Roman and Remus crowed over him for a minute. Logan made eye-contact with Virgil, leaning up against the porch railing, and smiled. Virgil was laughing behind his hand, and Logan could see the faint glint of the sun on his wedding band.

“Alright,” Virgil called once he’d calmed himself down. “Enough killing Papa, let’s get in the truck.” Roman pulled his sword back to ‘magically reanimate’ Logan, and Logan swept him up in a hug as Virgil caught hold of Remus. They strapped the three boys into their booster and car seats and then Logan slid into the passenger seat. Virgil pulled the truck out of the driveway and laced his fingers with Logan’s on the center console.

The drive to the pumpkin patch went as quickly as could be expected with two five year olds and a one year old in the back. Logan only had to tell Remus to stop kicking his seat twice and Roman not to behead Remus three times. Sometimes, Logan believed, it truly was a miracle they made it anywhere alive. Or on-time. (We could be killed! Or worse, late!)

As they all piled out of the car, Logan took a deep breath of the crisp, cold air in the pumpkin patch, savouring it. Virgil wrestled Roman into his jacket and Logan zipped up Remus’ so that he couldn’t shuck it off and run for it quite so quickly.

The goal, as Logan always reminded Virgil, was not to stop any attempt at escaping. It was to hinder their attempts to escape long enough that they could be caught before they got hurt.

The second step to the best treat ever was: picking out the pumpkins. This was never an easy feat. Logan wanted to find a perfectly round pumpkin, while Virgil preferred the most lopsided, oddly shaped one in the patch. Patton got a tiny pumpkin, but that had more to do with his tiny, adorable baby hands than any sort of preference. Roman liked the largest ones, and Remus also wanted the smallest ones he could find. This was partly because he wanted to eat them, partly because they were easiest to hide, and mostly because he could throw them at Roman with amazing accuracy.

If Remus ever decided to do a sport instead of terrorize his brother, he might have a fair chance at a career in baseball. Oh, well. One can dream.

Logan was lucky this year. He found the perfect pumpkin just a few rows back. It was of average size and spherical, and Logan immediately set it aside for himself. Then he went to Roman and followed him around the pumpkin patch, laughing and nodding as he grandly deemed each pumpkin too small or not orange enough and unworthy, until they finally got toward the back and found a behemoth of a fruit. It was more than half Roman’s height and might have weighed twenty pounds. Logan heaved it off the ground and carted it back to the front while Roman careened around him, only now allowing himself to admire the other, lesser pumpkins. Logan could see Remus jumping around in the bed of the truck. Virgil leaned against the side of the truck, smoking a cigarette and watching the sky. Patton was doing his best to eat a stuffed pumpkin near Virgil’s feet.

Logan waved as they got closer, and Roman took off without him. Virgil met Logan halfway and relieved him of the pumpkin.

“I got this,” he said, pressing a chaste kiss to Logan’s lips. “You go pay and with any luck we’ll be ready to go when your done.”

“As you wish, my love.” Logan set off for the employee and within ten minutes, they were back in the truck, this time with Logan driving and the boys preoccupied with their brand new pumpkins.

The third step to the best treat ever was: carving the pumpkins. This was, inarguably, the hardest part to do now that they had kids. Roman and Remus were five and therefore not old enough to use the pumpkin carving tools. They were also crazy, and therefore might never be trusted with such sharp, pointy objects. Patton was one, and while he was already the most responsible one of their kids, he also could not have a knife. For obvious reasons.

Virgil, who was quicker and a bit more observant than Logan, always helped Remus carve his pumpkin. Remus was far more likely than Roman to grab a knife and take off with it. He was also far more likely to take a bite of the pumpkin innards when nobody was looking, and while that wasn’t necessarily bad - in fact, they were healthy - it was absolutely disgusting and a giant mess. A mess that no one wanted to be cleaning up.

Logan carved Roman’s pumpkin, and Patton wasn’t quite old enough to understand how to do it yet. So he just sat on the floor and played with whatever small pumpkins rolled his way.

Once Roman finished his crown drawing on the pumpkin and passed it off to Logan for carving, Logan chose his favorite pumpkin carving knife and cut a circle out of the bottom. This was actually ideal, as it allowed the pumpkin to stay good longer and aided in retaining its structural integrity as long as possible. (Logan was an architect, sue him for enjoying the science behind the decorations.)

Then, Virgil and Logan gave the pumpkins back to the boys so they could rip out all the guts. Logan personally preferred to not do that (ew yucky, that is gunk) but their disaster twins loved it, so it all worked out perfectly in the end.

“Remus, please don’t eat the pumpkin guts,” Logan said. Remus had a handful of stringy, seedy pumpkin in one hand and a gleam in his eye that Logan knew meant trouble. Virgil, too, seemed to sense the impending mess, but against the pure chaos that was their middle child, there was nothing they could do. Remus shoved the slimy mess into is mouth, turned to Roman, and shouted, “I ‘m tuh ten’cle mun! Be ve’y ‘fraid!” and then jumped on him. Roman howled like a banshee as Remus’ pumpkin tentacles splattered Roman’s shirt, and then it was on.

“Rere!” Patton cheered from the sidelines, slobber-coated pumpkin in hand. “Rere!”

“At least they’re not trying to do this with knives like last year,” Virgil muttered.

“Small victories,” Logan sighed.

“Yeah,” Virgil agreed, “small victories.” But they were both smiling and there really was nowhere else Logan would rather be.

They kept a careful eye on all three of the boys as they carved the messily drawn shapes and then got some of the fake candles to light them. By the time it was all said and done, Remus’s face was mostly orange and Roman’s clothes would never look the same again. Even Patton had managed to partake in the Great Pumpkin Massacre, and was looking as happy as ever to be covered in slime.

“Here,” Virgil said, handing one candle to Remus. “You turn it on like this.” Remus flicked the little switch in the bottom. His eyes went wide as he looked at the little candle, and almost reverently he mumbled, “fire.”

“Should we be worried?” Logan asked, smiling slightly.

“No,” Virgil whispered back. “Far too cute to be a bad thing.” Logan snorted but nodded, and then they showed them where to set the little candles. Logan quickly set the pumpkins back together and Virgil clicked the lights off. The boys gasped as they beheld the five glowing pumpkins, each one beautiful and ghastly.

Logan’s was a traditional, grinning pumpkin, though Virgil had convinced him to add a necktie to the bottom. Logan thought that made it look reminiscent of Spongebob, but he didn’t particularly mind. Virgil’s was a scarier version of a traditional pumpkin face and it had little lightning bolts shooting off the sides. Roman’s was a princely crown with slim letters cut out of the bottom to spell his name. Remus’s was the same, except there were tangled tentacles coming off the crown and he had just left his initials on the bottom. Patton’s had his name within the outline of a heart.

Remus pulled his toward him and lifted it above his head. “Mine is the best!” he shouted. “I’m going to put it outside.” He lurched for the door and Roman was on his heels.

“I’m going to take care of that,” Logan said, pointing after their sons.

“Okay,” Virgil replied. “If you can get them cleaned up, I’ll probably be able to get the pumpkin seeds done tonight.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” Logan leaned in for a quick kiss and then scooped up Patton and another one of the pumpkins and carried on to the front porch.

The fourth and final step to the best treat ever was: preparing the seeds. That was what Virgil did while Logan handled the boys. They set the pumpkins out of the porch as Virgil carefully pulled the seeds out of the stringy remnants of the pumpkins. Logan took pictures of each boy and their pumpkins as Virgil salted the seeds. Logan brought the boys in and gave them all baths and clean clothes while Virgil put the seeds in the oven so they’d roast.

Remus was finally beginning to slow down once it was his turn for a bath. He didn’t even splash Logan once and seemed content enough to just be cleaned. He pulled the stringy bits in his hair out and watched them float around in the water while Logan wiped all of the slime off. Patton was also getting tired, and he yawned when Logan put him in the warm water. He was asleep before he was done. Roman, on the other hand, was the hardest to persuade into the bath. His hair was spiked up with pumpkin and his clothes and skin were stained orange, but he hated, more than anything else, the water.

“Ro, you have to take a bath. If you go to sleep like that, you’re going to be sticky when you wake up tomorrow.”

“Maybe I want to be sticky,” Roman said, arms crossed and pouting.

“Well, don’t you want to wear your new pj’s? They’ll be ruined if you put them on with all this gunk everywhere.” Logan ran a hand over Roman’s hair. It came away sticky. They both wrinkled their noses at it, but Roman still didn’t seem convinced. Logan sighed, but then cast a conspiratorially look over his shoulder, intriguing Roman. He pulled him closer and whispered, “Daddy’s going to have the pumpkin seeds all ready when you get out of the bath. But,” he added at Roman’s elated look, “you can only have them if you’re clean when they’re done. Bath first. Deal?”

“Deal,” Roman said, now determined. Logan smiled at him.

“Good boy.” He got Roman into the bath with little fuss after that, though he did pay for the bath with his own sopping wet clothes by the time it was done.

Logan brought the twins back into the kitchen a quarter after nine, exhausted and excited. Patton was sleeping in his room and Virgil had already divvied up the seeds into little bowls. Remus and Roman sat at the table and ate them quietly while Logan went to the kitchen counter next to his husband.

“Fun day,” he said quietly.

“Yeah,” Virgil yawned. “I’m just about ready for it to be over, though. Carving pumpkins really takes it out of ya.” He smiled and Logan couldn’t resist getting a kiss from him. “You’ve been pretty affectionate today,” Virgil noted. “Any reason, or just a thing?”

“It’s just been a pretty perfect day, if such a thing could exist.”

“I think it can,” Virgil mumbled, head leaning against Logan’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Logan said, “I think so too.” With one hand Logan pulled his own bowl of seeds toward him and with the other laced his fingers with Virgil’s.

And, well, if you wanted to be technical, the  _ last _ last step to the best treat ever was to eat it, but that didn’t really need to be said. It was, after all, simple common sense to treasure the things you loved.


End file.
